


single target healing

by Echo (Lyrecho)



Series: Wings of Rebellion [2]
Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Genre: Backstory for one of the Mum Squad, F/M, Lima Beans AU, POV First Person, allusions to offscreen marital rape, one singular scene of violence hence the tag (just in case)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 13:31:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16787905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrecho/pseuds/Echo
Summary: Lady Claudia of Zofia was many things - a noblewoman, a cleric, the second wife of King Lima IV, and the last of his wives to wed him before he started taking multiple.She was also a quiet tragedy, known to history only as the quiet Lady of Zofia who vanished almost as swiftly as Maghenyld before her.Before the night of fire, there was a night of blood. This is that tale.|Tumblr||Twitter|





	single target healing

I was twenty-six, the first time I saw Princess Claudia.

It wasn’t really a memory that stuck out to me as, well, memorable – not until years later.

I’d just been assigned a guard post on the Royal Gardens, which I thought was ridiculous; who would steal _flowers_? It wasn’t even like it was an easy access way into the palace itself. But, well, I was new. Newbies always get the shittiest jobs. Such is life.

I’d still been on my first week of that rotation, I think, when people entered the gardens when I was guarding them for the first time. It was Princess Claudia, and her son, Prince Arcturus. I didn’t know much about either of them, except that the princess had once been a cleric of Mila, and that even though her son was still little more than a baby, many people hoped he’d take the throne over his older sister – the Crown Princess Octavia, who whispers called ‘monster’ as frequently as ‘child.’

The boy was laughing and happy, running through the gardens like he was at a festival, instead of being hidden among hedges and thorny rose bushes.

The princess, though…she sat down on one of the marble benches lining the gardens with a sigh, and looked directly at me. I’d startled, I remember that. I hadn’t realised she’d known I was there.

There was a wariness in her eyes that had me tensing – but also a weariness that had me feeling deep, undeniable pity.

But, in the end, she was a princess, the wife of the king I’d sworn my service and my life to, the First Lady of Zofia, and I was just a common born guard so green I was still being hazed. Whatever her issues, they were beyond me, and none of my business.

I didn’t try to speak to her, then.

I wish I had.

-x-

The second time I saw Princess Claudia, that same year, it was snowing.

It was in those same palace gardens, though I was no longer stationed there as a guard – I’d thankfully been promoted to another rank and file soldier guarding the actual halls – but during my months of hazing, I’d come to find a certain peace in these gardens. I hadn’t seen the princess or her son during those months, and a small part of me had wondered if she had figured out when I was on shift in order to avoid me.

Of course, that was ridiculous. We’d met only once – if you could even call it a meeting – and she was the king’s wife. She undoubtedly had far too many things to do to be concerned with the schedule of a guard with no family name.

Still, seeing her there, in that garden, on the same bench she had been on months ago, staring up at the sky with a melancholy look on her face and snow dusting her shoulders and hair as if she had been sitting out in the snow for a while.

Once I spotted her, I stopped, and shifted awkwardly. It wasn’t like I _had_ to leave; the gardens were, essentially, open to anyone who lived in the palace, or the attached barracks – but the scene before me felt so silent, so private, that I felt bad for just walking into it.

I made to leave, hoping to exit the gardens before the princess noticed me, but, well. Snow is louder to move through than you’d think.

She startled, and looked over at me with eyes that carried that same exhaustion they had before. That same barely there fear.

“Uh,” I said. “Hi?”

For a long moment, she just stared at me, and I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t creeped out. I’d grown up near the Temple of Mila, right up close to the Rigellian border, and so, even with being Zofian, I’d heard the tales of the maidens of the snow. Not witches, not quite (though those were also terrifying); women who had lost their way in snowstorms and never realised they were long dead. In that moment, Princess Claudia just…radiated that same sort of emptiness the tales told of.

“…hello,” she said, finally, breaking the silence. I let out a small breath of relief, and hoped to Mila she would dismiss me, because now she’d noticed I was here, I couldn’t just _leave_. “You’re that guard that was here before.”

I blinked, because even with my paranoia whispering I was the reason she’d since avoided the gardens, I honestly had never expected her to remember me.

I told her as much, and she laughed, bitterly.

“This is the first time I’ve visited these gardens since,” she said. “I snuck out, you see. I wasn’t meant to be out here then, and I’m not meant to be out here now.” She sighed, and closed her eyes, tilting her head back to the sky once more, apparently heedless of the snow piling up on top of her, soaking into her hair, her clothes. “I didn’t bring Arcturus outside with me this time, so he may be more lenient, at least.”

She said the words without any hope or emotion, and I fidgeted uncomfortably, unease growing a pit in my stomach. She didn’t name names, but there was only one person who could give the princess orders, really. The voice in my brain that had been insisting we get her inside before _we_ got into trouble when she admitted she shouldn’t be out here immediately quieted.

I felt…I felt really bad. I remember that. I’d felt terrible, because I’d understood what she wasn’t saying, but I was just a guard. Young, stupid, and with my sister to look after. My parents back home _needing_ the money I sent to them. I couldn’t risk angering the king, especially since I knew I would never succeed in _doing_ anything, anyway.

And Mother, did I hate myself for it.

“I won’t tell anyone I saw you,” I said instead, the only thing I could do for her, the bare minimum I could promise, as I realised there wasn’t a guard here like there should be, and wondered if she’d somehow bribed them to leave, or if they’d escaped their post and therefore the cold by reasoning no one would be crazy to break into the royal gardens during Zofia’s first snowfall in over a century.

“Thank you,” she said. “It’s kind of you.”

“You sound surprised, milady.”

“Well, kindness is a rarity, in these parts,” she said. “So rare, in fact, that I fear for my son, growing up here alone. If Lima continues as he has, I doubt I’ll be here for him much longer.”

I genuinely couldn’t understand why she was being so candid with me, a guard she didn’t even know the name of, and to be completely honest, I still don’t. The only reason I could think of was that she was very lonely, and with no confidantes by her side. At that point, I supposed, anyone would do, and I’d happened to be there, and be kind.

Words came to mind, like _you’ll make it_ , or _be strong_ , but not only did I just feel too awkward to say them, I was smart enough to know that they would be words as empty and hollow as her eyes and her hope, however much I desperately wanted to mean them.

“Maybe things will look better once the snowfall stops,” I said instead, talking around the fact we both knew – her depression ran deeper than a few inches of snow from a grey sky, and I couldn’t fathom how there weren’t more rumours about _this_ floating around the palace, compared to how Princess Claudia had apparently, upon meeting her stepdaughter, joked about throwing her to wolves.

“Ha…maybe,” the princess said, tone flat. “One last day of sun, at least, would be nice.”

Her words shot a chill through me that even the air couldn’t, and a creeping fear stabbed at me as my mind rejected the only explanation it could come up with for what she said. She was the First Lady of Zofia – her strength was the strength of the nation, echoed through her devotion to our king and Mother Mila, and the idea of her buckling, dimming and fading was terrifying.

“Thank you, for the company,” she said quietly, and rose from the bench, the snow on her that had yet to melt falling silently from her shoulders to the ground. “It was nice, for once, to talk to someone. I’ll remember your kindness, always.”

There was a solemn finality in the words she spoke to me then, as she didn’t meet my eyes, as if wherever she was, it already wasn’t here. She made to walk away, and maybe if I’d called for her – called her back then – things would have been different.

I didn’t, though.

And that was, really, the last time I ever saw Princess Claudia.

-x-

Three months after that day in the gardens, and while I hadn’t forgotten about what the princess had said – could never forget; it was burned into my memory with unease – I’d mostly managed to push it to a far corner of my mind as I both hoped to see her soon and never encounter her again, no matter how my mind tried to drown me in guilt and concern. I had more important things to worry about than a noblewoman, like the fact that my sister was staying in the Castletown despite me telling her to stay away from the capital, where rumours had recently sprung up of men in fine armour and Zofian livery tearing away young, beautiful girls from their homes, and those girls not returning.

Since those whispers had started, I hadn’t been able to help looking through the halls with paranoia everytime I walked down them, like I expected to see a screaming girl being dragged through them. Of course, though, I never saw (or heard) any sign of a single one of those girls, and just because I felt uneasy about the king himself after spending just a few minutes in his wife’s presence was no reason to lay blame and suspicion at the feet of loyal Zofian knights and soldiers…especially since there were also rumours of cantors of the Duma Faithful breaking the Accord to practice their faith in Zofia.

The Accord, I knew, from years of living in a bordertown, did not prevent travel or migration between the kingdoms. It was simply a binding, divine agreement to let Mila rule as she had pleased, and Duma to do the same. That meant, of course, that practicing the teachings of Duma in Mila’s land ran the risk of breaking the Accord, and flooding the continent in terrors. I couldn’t think of any reason why Rigel would want to risk this at all, except maybe war.

And apparently the king thought so too, because once the rumours reached his ears, he tripled the guards on his personal quarters – no longer just the knights guarding the entrance to his personal chambers, but common foot soldiers like me guarding the halls right by it.

It was my third night on the duty, when I watched a knight lead Princess Claudia to her husband’s room, and close the doors behind her with an echoing finality that had me tense and twitching. The entire capital had felt on edge for weeks, and right now, I could feel the weight balancing on that tipping point shifting, breaking, and toppling. The princess had looked far thinner, more drawn out; pale and wan, then she had all those months ago, and while she had moved slowly, her face blank and her head bowed low with obedience, she’d flicked a gaze to me as she’d passed, and she’d _grinned_ – a real smile, I could tell, all teeth, even with her eyes as empty as I had always seen them.

I didn’t know what she had been planning to do, and even now, I still don’t. Not even ten minutes after the doors had closed behind her, and the king was screaming.

It was instinct to rush for the doors, to shove them open, with the knights and my fellows in the guard all doing the same. Though I would have, personally, been quite happy to leave the king to whatever fate his wife had planned for him, I’d been trained to react to screams and cries for help, and my own reflex betrayed my true desires.

We walked into a scene from a nightmare, and I have no idea how the princess had managed to do so much in so little time, especially wielding knives, small enough and thin enough to be hidden against her skin in her tight silk sleeves, rather than a staff for magic.

The windows were shattered, and while I couldn’t remember hearing glass breaking, I could certainly hear it now; the shards chiming and crunching under Princess Claudia’s weight as she snarled and tried to kick the knight that had tackled her to the ground off of her. Blood was everywhere, soaked into the sheets, the curtains – splattered across the walls and dripping into puddles. There was enough of it that I was confused how both the princess and the king were still alive, until my eyes picked out the darker green of the shards of a wine bottle, and pieced together at least some of the scene from the wine pooling under the king, and the glass caught in his soaked hair.

The king was scowling, and looked annoyed. “Shut her up, will you?” he said, bringing up one hand to cradle his head, and before I could react – before my mind could even process his words, let alone recognise them as an order – the knight pinning the princess down lifted her up by the neck, and then slammed her back down.

Her head hit the ground with a sickening _crack_ , and instantly, she went limp, each of her limbs sprawling, unnaturally still.

Nausea clawed at my throat, and only my own fear kept me from vomiting.

“You, boy,” the knight said, standing and dropping his grip on the princess. I was startled when I realised he was talking to me, but swallowed and straightened my back as much as I could.

“Yes, sir?” I asked, and thankfully, my voice – somehow – didn’t shake.

“Get this cleaned up,” he said, with a scoff, and gestured to Princess Claudia. I felt anger rise in me at his uncaring, callous treatment, but as I moved forward on autopilot, I swear I picked up sorrow in his eyes, and disgust turned inward, as he stared at the broken body he’d created. A knight too loyal to his oaths to break from his king, even to protect an abused girl.

Well. I could claim the moral high ground all I wanted, but I hadn’t done anything either. I was just as wretched as everyone else in this room, except for perhaps the king himself. I can’t imagine anyone who could be worse than _that_ monster. Duma himself, maybe?

Reluctantly, I bent down to pick up the princess’ corpse. I made sure to be gentle when I did it – she deserved that much, at least.

And it was then, standing, cradling her so limp body to my chest, that I felt the slightest fluttering of warm breath against my neck.

I forced myself not to react. To not let my mask crack even a _bit_. It was clear the king thought his wife dead, as did the knight who had ‘killed’ her in the first place. That was, perhaps, the greatest defence she could ever have.

If, of course, she survived long enough to need that defence – the glass she’d been thrashing in had sliced her back up very well; I could feel the blood seeping out onto my arms, soaking into my shirt, to say nothing of the damage done to her head by the impact – I’d _heard_ a crack.

I gave the shallowest bow I could get away with to the king, and fled the room once I had been dismissed with a careless wave of his hand and a derisive snort.

Likely, I was expected to carry the princess’ body to the temple attached to the palace, where the royal family had been prepped for burial for years. Maghenyld the Red had been the first to break that tradition in centuries, having had a burial at sea, but no sane Zofian considered her true royalty.

The thing, though, was that Princess Claudia’s body was, well. Not a body. And I kind of wanted it to stay that way, which I doubted the men and women of the palace temple would be ecstatic to help me do. No one wanted to cross the king, even if everyone hated him.

The answer came in a flash of inspiration, and I sent a quick prayer to Mother Mila for her providence. To be sure, I’d been upset that my sister had wandered so far from home to risk her life in Castletown, but _she_ was a trained healer – not a cleric, never having taken the vowels, but she knew the arts as well as any woman not of the cloth could.

A destination in mind, I set out to run to her – time was of the essence – and thus, nearly bowled right into Prince Arcturus.

For a moment, I just stared at the boy before me – small. A child still, and yawning.

“Mama?” he said, and blinked at the princess in my arms, before seeming to just accept the situation in that way that children do. He toddled forward, and frozen, I couldn’t think to move back. “Mama?” his hands on her arm, he shook her.

“Mama’s tired, Your Highness,” I said, my voice finally working through the stiff rasp that choked it. “I’m – I’m taking her to bed.”

He blinked up at me, like he’d forgotten I was there, before smiling at me – all gums and childish innocence as he took my words at face value, and accepted them.

“Mama need tucking in?” he asked, and yawned once more, rubbing at one eye. “Heard noises, so went to check on mama.”

“I’ve got your mother, Your Highness,” I said. “You should get back into bed.”

“Mmmkay,” the little prince said, before leaning forward on his toes to press a kiss to his mother’s cheek. “Night, mama!” he gave a little wave as I left him behind, and _Mother_ did the guilt stab at me. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, his mother had died tonight, and if she wanted to live, once she was healed, the princess would have to go into hiding, somewhere far, far away from her husband. There was nothing I wanted more in that moment than to scoop up her son and bring him with us so she’d at least have him with her, wherever she had to go, but I already had doubts in my abilities to get an unconscious woman outside of the castle without discovery. And, more than that…even if I vanished after this, and deserted, Princess Claudia’s body never appearing for burial, I couldn’t imagine the king sending knights after us.

The prince? While I couldn’t imagine the king _caring_ , there’s no doubt in my mind that Prince Arcturus would be hunted, especially with the quiet hope most had that Crown Princess Octavia’s fits of rage would have a bloody, final end one day, leaving her younger, quieter brother to take the throne.

I’m sorry, Princess Claudia…Prince Arcturus…I’m sorry…

-x-

My sister was far too good for me. I’d known this since we were kids, but she was always thankful for the chance to remind me, which she did, in hissing whispers as we crouched in the undergrowth, waiting for the patrol of cavalry to pass.

It had been two weeks since that night in the castle, and once Katharine had healed most of Princess Claudia’s grave wounds – just enough that she would survive – we’d fled the capital, that very night, to lower our chances of capture. It had been a long two weeks, spent on the road, with the occasional stops to duck out of sight of patrols and for Kathy to do another healing session on the princess, who had yet to really ‘awaken,’ though she’d taken to stirring a lot more frequently, and for longer, before being lulled back into unconsciousness.

I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t worrying me, but Kathy had assured me it was common for head injuries, of which she’d had a severe one, and, well. She was the healer, here. I was just the muscle.

“We’re close to a town, I think,” Kathy whispered. The sound of galloping hooves was long gone, but two weeks of constant paranoia sort of destroys your ability to talk at what most would consider a reasonable volume. “A port town.”

“Good,” I said. We’d very deliberately veered in the opposite direction of home, because my service records were available for anyone in the palace to see, and I had no doubt they’d pay my parents a visit for my desertion, or whatever crime they were pinning on me for fleeing with Princess Claudia.

Mother, Father…I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, for all the trouble I’ve undoubtedly caused you. Please, _please_ be okay.

“So we get to the port town,” I said. “What then?”

“I think our best bet is Novis,” Kathy whispers. “There will be better trained healers than me there, and it doesn’t have the most frequent contact with the mainland, to my knowledge. We should be safe to hide there, at least for a while.”

Novis was a name I knew, if not well, I mused as we stumbled back onto the road, brushed ourselves off, and began once more to make our weary way down it. One of the few island priories left to Valentia, when most had been destroyed eons ago, in the great flood. The Schism, some scholars called it, though schism of _what_ , I’d never understood.

It turns out, after hours of walking and hours of exhausted silence, that Kathy had been right – the town was indeed a port town, and whether it was just so small it didn’t have a name, or I was so out of it that I hadn’t noticed any signs, I didn’t know. There was a part of me that wanted to find my way to an inn and collapse for about a week, but instead, we made straight for the docks, where wharf rats – and not the rodent kind – scurried about in play everywhere. One daring young girl darted close enough to me to nab my coinpurse, and I kept a wary eye on her as she approached, hands behind her back and gap toothed smile nice and bright, radiating innocence.

“A pretty shell for the pretty lady!” she said, with a slight lisp, and I sighed as she held out a hand, not taking no for an answer. I knew how this worked, and so, too exhausted to argue, I pressed a single silver mark into her hand in exchange for a common seashell still soaked with saltwater. “Thank, mister! Pleasure doing business!” and she was off, prize in hand, the other children cheering as she approached them. She hadn’t looked like a street kid, so my best guess was I’d just given a group of children a candy allowance to ruin their dinner appetites with. Ah, well.

“Little Vesper’s up to her tricks again!” On a ship tied to the docks, a man let out a booming laugh. “Sweet of you to play along, kid.”

“Better to make allies with small change than get robbed blind,” I said. “She looked pretty ruthless.”

“Oh, a right cutthroat,” he agreed. “She’ll grow up to be a captain to be reckoned with.” Shrewd eyes stared me down, flicking over to Kathy at my side and the princess in my arms. “You looking to book passage, sir?”

“To Novis, yes.”

“Ah,” he said, and sorrow flickered in his eyes. “Healers for your lady love, hmm?”

The mere idea nearly broke my brain, but I could tell Kathy was winding up for a kick – _don’t spoil a gift wrapped cover story, idiot brother_ – so I nodded mutely. I couldn’t really act for the life of me, so instead of trying for grief, I just did my best to radiate the genuine, bone deep exhaustion I felt. Apparently it worked, because the sorrow in his eyes shifted to sympathy.

“I’ve heard that the mainland healers don’t always have the faith needed to truly, well, heal,” he said. “And given the tales of Mila and Novis, they do say it’s a place where broken loves can be healed…” he trailed off, and grinned. “Ah, hell, I’m a sap at heart,” he said. “How about a deal? You help out around the ship, and I’ll take you to Novis, since I’m heading there on a supply run anyway. What’s a little more cargo?”

“Truly?” Kathy blinked. “No charge?”

“There’s enough sadness in the world without condemning a young woman to die because I tried to force her family to pay money needed for her treatment on passage to a healer,” he said. “So welcome aboard! You kids got names?”

“This is my sister, Kathy,” I said, feeling slightly dazed as he lowered the gangplank and gestured for us to make our way up. “I’m Schuyler. And this is…” I hesitated, looking down at the woman in my arms. “Dia,” I finally said. “This is Dia.”

“Kathy, Dia, and – do you mind if I call you Sky? Your name has way too many syllables.”

I shook my head. “Not at all,” I said.

“Right.” The man grinned. “Well, kids, welcome aboard _The Storm_ ,” he said. “My name is Ross, and I’ll be your Captain for this journey.”

“We’re thankful for it,” Kathy said. “Truly.”

“No worries, no worries,” Captain Ross said. “Go get settled in below decks. I’ll get you to Novis quick as can be, on my honour.”

I bowed my head in thanks, and followed Kathy down into the room the captain said we could use. It was small, and cramped, but it wasn’t a ditch on the side of the road, and I lay the princess down on a pile of cloth with great relief.

“Sorry to drag you into this, sis,” I said, as Kathy immediately scrambled forward to check on the princess, staff out and charged at the ready.

She laughed at me. “You’d better be,” she said, but she sounded amused. “I…I hope mum and dad are okay.”

“I’m sure they are – ” I started to reassure her, but she let out a choked gasp, and I looked over in a mild panic to see Princess Claudia more than just _stirring_ under her hands, but blinking up at her with complete awareness, looking absolutely confused.

“Who are you?” The princess asked, looking between me and Kathy with a frown. “Who – who am _I?_ ”


End file.
